Morning Skate: Colorado Avalanche at Detroit Red Wings: How to Watch, Projected Lineups

Time: 1:00 P.M.

Place: Joe Louis Arena

TV: Fox Sports Detroit, Alti

Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM

Avalanche Blog: Mile High Hockey

Once more unto the Breach

The Joe has witnessed the rise and fall of one of the greatest rivalries in NHL history. And while today’s game in the grand scheme of the fandom is a battle between Red Wings factions Team Titanic (sink to the bottom) and Team Titanic Musicians (play with pride to the bitter end), I hope that Team Titanic will put their strategizing aside for one day and get on board with making the Avalanche’s last memory of the Joe a bitter one.

We managed to beat the mighty and definitely good and not at all bad Arizona Coyotes very early Friday morning at Joe Louis Arena West, and it took a shootout to do it - but hey it showed that we deserve our crown as the NHL Shootout Champions (we’ve won 8 of 8 and the Coyotes are second place winning 6 of 8). So we have a little good momentum going into today’s game.

Jeff Blashill don’t want none unless you backcheck son

Dylan Larkin had a pretty good game in Arizona, a few blips here and there but overall he looked better than he has the past few games. Larkin awkwardly wiping out into the boards while backchecking was praised by the FSD crew because hustle, he was a little slow to get up but fine.

Anthony Mantha’s TOI was under 10 minutes, and he pretty much disappeared during the 3rd period (not disappeared as in played lazy, but disappeared as in Jeff Blashill sealed him in a refrigerator box labeled “Spare Parts”).

Andreas Athanasiou I think is utilizing his speed better than Larkin and Mantha right now, which helps him be one of our best playmakers because he is just everywhere all the time.

I just wish I knew what the Super-Mega-Ultra-Extreme-Top Secret plan is for these three, especially Mantha.

Skate, skate, skate

Afternoon games sometimes lead to a slow start, so the Joe might need to be extra rowdy at puck drop to get the guys going and keep the energy up. I’m talking 1980’s Jazzercise video levels of energy through the whole game. While Henrik Zetterberg can do it all, he shouldn’t have to, so let’s get all the lines more involved in creating scoring chances.

The Avalanche are on what is generously being called a “hot streak” having won 3 of their last 5 games, and they haven’t played since Wednesday leaving them well rested. However, we know that even when they are good they are still actually bad.

While there are plenty of teams to hate and new rivalries to build up, we will never have another enemy like the Avalanche. So let’s send them a reminder that while arenas come and go, grudges are forever; and we will always make their visit to Hockeytown an unpleasant one.

Expected Lineups

Scratches: Drew Miller

Injuries:, Ryan Sproul, Jonathan Ericsson, Johan Franzen (LTIR), Joe Vitale (LTIR)

Scratches/Injuries: Semyon Varlamov, Nikita Zadorov

Let’s Go Red Wings!